Sunday, April 18, 2010

Which John McCain is the real John McCain? The maverick or someone who denies he's a maverick?

Numerous clips of McCain referring to himself as a maverick


John McCain appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace today and denied that he was a maverick, even though Wallace played numerous clips of McCain referring to himself as a maverick. McCain's defense was that he has been called a maverick when he argued against spending by a Republican administration, whereas now that he's arguing against spending by this administration he's called a partisan.

Well it's true he's differed with prior Republican administrations, but not because he was more conservative and opposed spending. In fact, he went along with much of the pork barrel earmark bailouts he is constantly claiming he opposes. His latest TV ad claims that he has consistently opposed pork barrel spending. Oh really? Maybe he has consistently opposed them since 2009 only.  In 2008, the last year of the Bush administration, he supported FOUR pork bailouts: He voted for the $85 billion AIG insurance bailout, the $700 billion general TARP pork bailout, the $25 billion auto bailout, and he proposed a $300 billion mortgage entitlement to buy out every bad mortgage in the country.

Maybe the real reason he opposes pork bailouts this year, 2010, is because he has a primary opponent with a 98% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. Not because of you know, that pesky little word called "principles."

From PRWatch.org -

John McCain (R-Arizona) who has long proudly promoted himself to the public and the media as a "maverick" politician, is now disavowing that label. During the 2008 presidential campaign, McCain ran ads identifying himself and his running mate Sarah Palin as "the original mavericks." At a town hall-style meeting In Michigan in 2008, he said, "Sarah [Palin] and I don't agree on every issue -- what do you expect of two mavericks? To agree on everything?" Even more recently at campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona, in March, Sarah Palin, stumping for McCain, urged the crowd four times to "send McCain the Maverick back to Washington." Yet in a Newsweek article about him published in the magazine's April 3 issue, McCain says he never believed the word applied to him. McCain told Newsweek "I never considered myself a Maverick. I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities." This marked shift in how he is portraying himself raises questions among his Arizona electorate, like to what extent has McCain's "maverick" label been tactical instead or real? Or, like back in his POW days, is McCain doing whatever it takes to survive politically? Which McCain is the real John McCain?

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